ROW: a formula for happiness and success | Luca Crepaccìoli | TEDxUdine

As children they used to tell us: "work before pleasure", and growing up we chased the myth of the work-life balance. In a hyper-connected world, Luca lost the boundaries between home and office walls and found himself unprepared to manage work-life integration. Then he realized that chasing everything does not mean achieving excellent results or being happy. Happiness and success are linked - and in order to achieve them, it is necessary to choose what way, and with whom, people should spend their most precious resources: time and energy. This is how the concept of Return On Work was born.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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Good morning.

Today I would like to talk to you
about three things.

That is three things that we often
hold dear to our hearts:

happiness, success and time.

I have often asked myself,

"Is success necessary to be happy?

Or, is happiness
a pre-requisite for success?"

As a child, everything
seemed crystal clear:

me and anyone from my generation,

we grew up constantly hearing
the same phrase:

"Duty before pleasure".

We did not like that,
it would make me pout.

Nevertheless, it somehow helped us
grow up more or less diligently.

Then, along with the
first responsibilities,

I initially chased
the work-life balance myth.

That is to say,
I strived to balance my time

between my job and my private life.

However, in a world
that has become hyper-connected,

I found myself ill-prepared
with managing the work-life integration.

In other words, I lost track
of those boundaries

between my domestic walls
and the office ones.

Finding myself connected 24-7,

feeling both physically
and mentally drained,

I understood that chasing
everything and everyone

does not necessarily mean
getting excellent results,

nor being happy.

It is human nature and culture,
which leads us to think

that in order to be successful,
we need to constantly work more.

It dawned on me, however, today
we actually need to do less instead.

How? By choosing and selecting,

choosing how and with whom

we invest our time,
our most valuable resource.

Time is a fine raw material;
it is precious,

it is not found in nature,
it is gifted to us day by day.

One could argue, we have plenty of it;

and perhaps this very abundance

prevents us from appreciating
the beauty of this gift.

So we often find ourselves

spending our days
frantically running around.

By night-time we are exhausted
with a restlessness feeling

that prevails over any sense

of having pleasantly contributed
towards an achievement.

At times we check
a few things after dinner,

or set our alarm one hour earlier.

Do not say you have never done this.

Going back to the choice concept
as well as doing less,

if we could try counting

how much time we spend every day
to make a given decisions,

we could possibly notice
that it takes most of our time.

In fact, everyday we decide
the appropriate time to wake up,

what to wear, where to go, etc.

We constantly choose
where and what to focus on.

But have we ever attempted to consider
how much time we allocate everyday

in this decision - selection process?

If you are thinking

"if time is so precious,
why am I reserving so little time to it? "

and you are immediately
wondering "How come?"

Well, we first need to consider
that choosing is challenging.

In fact, it requires a cognitive strain,

which is not necessarily
associated with happiness.

Hence, we often rely on instinct,

which gives us an exciting opportunity
to choose without excessive effort.

And our days fly by.

However, as Aristotle once said,

"We are what we repeatedly do",

so choosing repeatedly
automatically becomes a vital exercise

for our success and happiness.

The experience I have gained
in the past 15 years at Goodyear,

an American multinational

with a cultural value

of respect for people and the workplace,

while still inevitably bounded
to profit dynamics,

has led me to deeply reflect

on the connection
between happiness and success.

Between the time invested
and the need to choose.

If you think about it, making decisions

is the real core business
of every entrepreneur and manager.

In a company, for example,

in order to decide
between possible investments

we tend to calculate
the "Return On Investment", or ROI.

A simple mathematical formula

that relates the profit
earned from an investment

with the funds one needs to spend for it.

I then questioned myself:

can we assess our own ability
to effectively invest our time and energy?

These considerations
eventually inspired me

the concept of "Return on Work" (ROW).

Based on this, as an analogy,
a hypothetical mathematical formula

was formed aiming to calculate
how resources, energies,

the time we invest in each activity
or all across the workday,

do in fact contribute to the real goal
of managers and entrepreneurs:

business growth.

It is about one year since I moved
to the Middle East, Dubai in particular -

still for Goodyear -

where markets tend to grow,

oil crisis aside.

In times of recession, however,
I mostly lived in Southern Europe -

Portugal, France, Spain
and even in Italy -

with the need to increase
the business value

in steady, mature markets,
with tendentially declining margins,

and an organisational restructuring
was therefore needed.

Initially, my team and I

looked around for alternatives

that could do more,

and increase the business value
with limited resources.

We then realised, we weren't headed
to the right direction.

Looking to do more with fewer resources
typically de-motivates the organisation.

Aside from those cases
of gross, patent inefficiencies,

it also only generates marginal results.

Managers, in fact,

forced as they are to spread their budgets

across a range of allegedly
important activities,

tend to have a defensive
and strictly operational approach,

protecting their budgets
and playing a passive role in the process.

So we decided to do less, with less,

but in a way that could
generate a greater impact.

The real challenge is the ability
to identify and establish, as a team,

what will make the real difference
between success and the status quo.

Reflections on ROW formula,
taken as a starting point,

brought us to reconsider

every single moment,

every single energy spent in the workday,

in an effort to assess its contribution
to the business growth,

and discard it if it wasn't there.

I won't deny that this approach

won a huge success
within the organisation:

it stirred up positive energy, and it had
a somewhat liberating effect.

Calculating the benefits of

each action performed on a daily basis,

and comparing them
not from an importance standpoint,

but more on essentiality instead,

results in seeing things
from a completely different perspective

and makes you far more
selective and demanding,

especially with oneself.

And it makes you choose.

This process inevitably led us
to reconsider our concept of strategy.

Quite often, in companies,
strategy is confused with numbers.

with setting ourselves challenging goals.

Instead, the awareness grew up on us

that strategy also entails
the ability to say no.

The challenge today
is not choosing what to do.

The real challenge today refers
to what needs to be discarded

among all the things we deem important,

but won't make a real difference.

It is not about making a todo list
in order of importance,

It's about selecting,
among all important things,

what will ultimately have

a real impact on the end-results,
the organisation as a whole,

and bravely discard everything else.

Only this will give us the time

to focus on what really matters

and increase our chances of success.

Doing more, adding, is relatively simple.

Doing less, eliminating,
simplifying, is much harder.

Why?

Because it forces to choose!

Discussing in a company not just
about numbers, results and objectives,

but also, unapologetically,
about other issues

such as happiness, energy expenditure,

it somehow opens our eyes

on the impact our attitude has
on relationships' effectiveness.

The very focus on time
brought us to purposelessly avoid

occupying other people's time.

How many times have we found ourselves
in a meeting or in a situation

with no real added value,
feeling we were wasting our time?

Well let's say that, especially
within a business context,

it is not always possible for us to decide
what to invest our time on.

But we can do something.

We can avoid dragging colleagues -

but also friends and family,
in our private life - in these situations.

Spreading in Goodyear

respect and the culture of appreciation
for other people's time

has certainly earned a huge success.

Already back in 1958, about 60 years ago,

C. N. Parkinson stated with his law,

"Work expands so as to fill
the available time for its completion,

the more time is there,
the more will be wasted".

And so we questioned a little

all the time we spent
together in the company,

and started halving
the number of meetings.

We started by cancelling
all those meetings,

which were not directly connected

to a priority deemed essential
for the business growth.

We then abolished all those presentation
that were longer than a page.

Those long, annoying
PowerPoint presentations

that usually have the purpose
of supporting the speaker,

and allow me to say this,
gratify him/her -

and drain energy from those
who are forced to listen.

This way we freed
some time for discussing,

looking at each other
in the eyes and connecting.

This is connection:

Looking at a presentation,
staring at a screen,

just creates information.

Discussions and looking
at each other's eyes creates connection.

Being connected means
having complete awareness

of thoughts, emotions and state of mind

of those before you.

Connection is the only way
to have an effective conversation.

Make no mistakes though,
a real connection takes effort.

We know that there is
very little we can do

to improve our intellectual quotient,

as this is formed during
the first years of our lives

and is partly inherited.

But we can do a lot
to improve our emotional one

throughout our lives.

And this is great news.

In other words, we have to place
emotional intelligence building

on top of the agenda,

and then get away off the stage.

It is necessary to ask for feedback,
listen without prejudice

and run experiments.

This was an exercise
we did together in the company

and there is an old saying, which reads,
"If you want to go fast, slow down". In my

So investing time
in the connection process,

before any conversation,

either with a person
or within a business-meeting context,

has proven extremely effective

and contributed to create
a more much pleasant work environment.

Each of our words, behaviour and glance

has an impact on people around us.

Having this full awareness

becomes fundamental
for an optimal use of time.

But making the right choices
is still not enough.

People we surround ourselves with,

and especially the context we create,

make all the difference.

Therefore, stopping for a moment
to reflect on this topic

becomes essential.

Also, it becomes an essential process

to avoid wasting days
and, like I said at the beginning,

frantically running around,

and remaining lucid.

It is only by being lucid
that we are effective:

with ourselves, but mostly with others.

So lucidity is the secret ingredient

for all that "Return on Work"
machinery to work.

So it is important to remember
taking a deep breath,

giving time to ourselves and the others,

both as a life style
and as a business model.

And enjoy all the beauty
we are surrounded by

and take even the most delicate scents.

Successful people feel good

because they make time
for themselves and others too.

The heart of those people
beat for a purpose.

Today's, it is the "leadership of giving",

which allows for a perfect synchronisation
between happiness and success.

Giving to others
our most precious resources

is like donating them
to our own happiness.

After all, we know all too well,
altruism is selfishness at its finest.

But how do we remain lucid
if human culture makes us think

that in order to succeed
we need to do more?

The "Return on Work"
helped me choosing well,

and finding the time
for myself and others.

And at night-time, when I come back home
and I rest my head on the pillow,

I tend to visualise
all my daily movie frames.

I go through all those moments

I was able to breath, connect
and dedicate my time to others.

I think the beauty of life
lies in giving and sharing,

and I happily fall asleep.

Now I can only wrap up
by wishing you time.

Not "all sorts of gifts",

like Eli Michler once wrote
in one of her poems.

Time, not only to kill but to save.

Time, not only to check on your watches
but also reach for the stars.

Time for finding yourselves,
and time to live.

Thank you for your time today!

(Applause)